It's the summer of 1953 and bush pilot Charlie Halliday—brash ladies man and war veteran—is flying a routine job in the Queen Maude Gulf on the Arctic Ocean when he encounters a small band of Inuit people who plead for his help. They are traveling with a sick young woman ("... tuberculosis," Halliday thinks) and they want Halliday to fly her to a hospital. At first he refuses, but when they offer him a bribe of two beautiful walrus tusks, he reluctantly agrees.
During the flight, the aircraft's engine suddenly explodes. The plane nose-dives towards certain death before Halliday can pull her up. But it's not enough; a float catches the waves of the glacial lake, hurling the plane high in the air before it comes crashing down only yards from shore. Though miraculously surviving the crash, Halliday is overwhelmed with a sense of doom when he finds they are stranded hundreds of miles from civilization on the rugged and barren arctic tundra with a broken radio and only a handful of supplies. Halliday sees his companion, the enigmatic Kanaalaq, as a savage whose presence is sure to be a burden. With winter fast approaching, he realizes they will both surely perish.
Canadian Connection: Actors
Barry Pepper and Annabella Piugattuk; director
Charles Martin Smith (landed immigrant); producers
Rob Merilees and
William Vince; filmed in Merritt, British Columbia, Churchill, Manitoba and Rankin Inlet; based on the short story "Walk Well My Brother" by Farley Mowat.
Awesome! A movie that will inspire anybody to never give up.
This movie is a jewel. The natural and irresistible charm of Annabella Piugattuk, the outstanding performance of Barry Pepper, and the remarkable behind-the-scene work of Charles Martin Smith (who starred in "Never Cry Wolf", another fantastic movie on a very similar theme) make this movie an absolute must. I have personally travelled alone 3 times to the High Arctic (Grise Fjord, on Ellesmere Island), and very few movies have ever managed to reproduce with such accuracy the feeling that one has when exposed to the magnitude and immense beauty of this unspoiled land. Farley Mowat's book "Walk Well My Brother", from which the movie stems, has never ceased to inspire me. "The Snow Walker" has
Really didn't expect anything from this movie(I watched it on CBC's late night movie)but I think it is a beautiful story. I would watch it again.